DreamsI've been keeping a dream journal on a special Twitter account since I was 23 years old. You can read these raw forms, if you'd like: @IHadaDreamWhere. I'm going to be adapting 99 of them as microstories.

Saturdays (mezzofiction)

Missy’s MissionWith the help of a friend, a young woman searches a rogue planet for the rumored means of getting rid of her special time powers, since having them puts her in the crosshairs of a psychotic time traveling killer.

My name is Nick Fisherman III. It's not my real name, but that's not because I'm trying to hide from my former agency, or something. I named myself after someone I've known for most of my life, and he chose it in honor of his late best friend. I took up writing when I found myself failing 8th grade science, and realized I might never reach my dream of becoming a biochemist, a meteorologist, and a quantum physicist. I started developing my canon after a scouting trip to an island inspired what I thought would be my first novel. I founded this website upon the advice of many people, who told me I needed to get my work out there, and not wait for an agent to accept my manuscript. You can expect one new story every day. Weekdays are for microstories, which are one or two paragraphs long. They're usually only thematically linked, so you won't have to read one to understand another, but they do sometimes tell a combined story. Sundays are for my continuous longer story, The Advancement of Leona Matic, which I started in the beginning, and won't end until 2066. Saturdays are for long series, most of which take place in the same universe as Leona, and add to the larger mythology.

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Microstory 792: Sharp Top

The sharptop prairie bear is one of the rarest animals in the world. To most people’s knowledge, the prairie bear is not a bear at all, but a subspecies of the rhinoceros family. And like other rhinoceroses, it has been hunted vehemently for its horn. Unlike other rhinos, however, it is distinguished by a thick coat of fur, reminiscent of the prehistoric woolly rhino. While other conservationists are championing the protection of the other types of rhinos, few are concerned with the sharptop’s plight, and with not illogical reason. Sharptops are powerful and violent beasts, known for raiding nonthreatening camps, and rampaging against safari vehicles. They are a relative outlier in the animal kingdom in that they will attack totally unprovoked. Evolutionary biologists believe that this actually serves a purpose for survival. Though now apex predators, they were believed to have once been hunted by the giant firetigers that once roamed their lands. In order to survive, sharptops adapted their digestive system so they could consume both plants, and other animals. At some point in their development, they decided to stop eating plants, and are the only carnivorous rhino alive today. Still, the giant firetiger was spry and cunning, and continued to stalk their prey relentlessly, so the sharptop had to change again by maintaining a constant state of acute stress response. Basically, they are hyperaware of their environment, and can be set off by the slightest movement. Though their horns are relatively small, they are unique, and prized amongst poachers for how dangerous and difficult it is to procure one. And so they are an endangered species, but one that is left largely unaided by the nonprofit community. Seeing this as wrong, Algerian conservationist and veterinary pathologist, Narimane Kateb has devoted her life to curing the sharptop prairie bear’s perpetual tension. Her goal is to sway public opinion on the animal, and gather funding to improve the species’ population. And she’s almost done it.